The Power of Ten

Chapter 7-203: SLA’s

“Ho, are we done here?” The Mick’s voice came from the neighboring room, sounding more than a little amused.

I smirked despite myself, and Master Fred and I wandered down the adjacent tubeway to the seraglio.

There was an enormous four-poster there, sized for a genie noble who liked to desport himself, extravagant and sumptuous like the rest of the room. It was completely out of place in a lava palace, but that was how genies rolled.

The Mick was seated on a padded stool, while a crimson-skinned demonic beauty, with cloven hooves, bat’s wings, a flicking spade-tipped tail, and delicately spiraling black horns was glaring at him with eyes lit by balefire. She had bright yellow hair, and a figure designed by Lust to inspire carnal desire.

The silks and veils she was wearing weren’t designed to conceal, but to emphasize. She turned her eyes on us two new entries, keeping her hands away from the Collar on her neck with an effort of will, staring at us in calculation.

“Master Fred?” I inquired calmly.

NOT A PACT GRANTOR, he stated calmly, barely glancing at her. LIKELY HER TRUE NAME IS HELD BY ANOTHER, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE.

“Is your Truename held by the Efreet or the Firelord?” I asked the succubus directly, in Demonic.

“Why should I tell you?” she snarled back... politely.

“The next time you fail to answer a question of mine, I am going to Feed you to the Land, and find another succubus. There are an infinite number of you, and the reason you are still alive is because you are a succubus, not because you have any value outside that reason. I am patient, and the fact you were foisted off on an Efreet means the Firelord doubtless has access to more of your kind.

“Now, I will give you thirty seconds to contemplate the end of your eternity, and our relationship shall thence advance as you deem fit.”

She shuddered despite herself as I fixed my eyes on her. I hadn’t bought those Intimidate Ranks for no reason. I was also standing next to a Heaven-and-Hellbound, and The Mick looked like he was ready to feast on her.

Yeah, I was totally ready to feed a demon to vivus, and helpless or not, it was still a Good Deed by definition. She had to know I had literally slaughtered armies...

Her demeanor changed smoothly after a few seconds of thought. “In response to Mistress’ question, both the Firelord and his governor know my Truename.”

I waved my hand and isolated the Genie Prison, as Master Fred walked away to examine the rest of the room, his presence unneeded. “Do you prefer to spend your days Bound and Sealed, or in a comfortable Genie Prison with the Bey?” I lifted up the ornament for her perusal, and her eyes narrowed.

She licked sumptuous lips delicately, looking back and forth between it and me. Doubtless she found the Bey easy to manipulate to get what she wanted, even if he had her Truename. Her glance around the sumptuous room indicated that she took her comforts as quite important.

“I would take the prison, Mistress,” she replied carefully, waiting to see my reaction. Being in the prison would prevent her from being Summoned by the Firelord and punished, if nothing else.

“As you are a demon, I will need your Truename. I promise that I will not use it to Summon you for anything resembling combat, to torment you, cause you pain, or similar reasons to establish dominance over you. If I want something from you, I will order it from you and you will obey, or I will dispose of you, that is all. Do you understand this?”

She licked her lips, staring at me. “Yes, Mistress,” she agreed, fear and hate warring behind her eyes, and she closed them, concentrating.

The name was fairly involved in Demonic as she sent it to me telepathically, and I caught the grimace at the edge of her exquisite lips as she touched my mind. Yes, it would have been a very bad idea to attempt to ensorcel me.

Fires burned from across the room behind her. I WISH THAT THE SUCCUBUS )^*)(*(& BE TREATED AS A GENIE FOR PURPOSES OF SEALING HER IN GENIE PRISONS.

“Very well.” The burning words faded away, and The Mick’s dark eyes crinkled in amusement as he watched it all. “Inside with you.” Binding magic backed by knowledge of her Name reached out for her.

There was a swirl of burning balefire gasses, and she was drawn into the Genie Prison in a rush of motion and power, fwoop, gone, the Collar clinking to thick rugs on the stone floor behind her.

The Prison didn’t change weight, of course, as they were in a sub-dimension.

The Mick glanced at the Prison as Master Fred walked back, and I nodded. “Worked, did it?” he said, his voice a little hushed.

After all, I could now grant Wishes. That was no small thing.

“It did.”

His white smile blossomed. “Do I get one?” he had to ask.

I held up a finger. “Wait until before Dusk Renewal, of course. There’s no stress or cooldown to the ability, but it’s a very nice Reserve option to have.”

“Got it.” He remembered that I took world-defying abilities as just another granted thing, and shook his head, then grinned despite himself.

He was going to be getting Wishes to raise his Stats! He was going to be the most powerful Blooded in the world, bar none...

“That’s not the only broken ability,” I informed him, and he cocked his head at me. “I only told you to spare her if she was a succubus for a reason.”

“I don’t know enough about demons to guess why,” he admitted. “I doubt you want the ability to suck out souls.”

I laughed softly, and tapped the bridge of my nose tellingly. “What do you think Sama’s Marks are based on?” I asked him.

He blinked. “What? A succubus?”

“Succubus bestow Blessings endowed with demonic power, allowing a Buff to one Stat, and telepathic contact that can stretch across planar boundaries.”

He pursed his lips, eyes almost but not quite crossing for a moment for the Mark inside his nasal cavity. “You’ll be able to replicate a Mark?” he asked.

“Sama’s is more powerful, but she can’t treat Powered readily. I’ll be able to use the real one... and upgrade it.” I pulled my left sleeve back up, revealing the Mark on my shoulder there. “I have a template, after all.”

The Mick swore in recognition. “Aye, but limited usage, right?” he had to ask.

“Correct... but there are ways to get around that, too.” I watched him roll his eyes theatrically.

“Of course there are,” he said. “Should I know of them?”

“Binding and Sealing a Succubus, of course.” I made plucking gestures. “Seal a Succubus, use Binding Theft to actually steal the Blessing ability within the confines of the Sealing, like any other power, and simply retain it using the Sealing Bound Power abilities.”

“And you did not use it on her because?” he had to ask.

“She will keep the Bey distracted.”

His eyes glittered in understanding. “And you expect the Firelord to have more of them.”

“Yes. There are literally no end of demons...” As long as there was Sin, there would be demons.

“Well, then let’s be about finding them. I confess to wanting to see what you are going to do with them...”

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The two outlying volcanoes had been cleared, and now one of the four Firebarons, as they were called, had fallen. There was plenty of video on the swathes of slain Fireborn, their arcane war machines, and the harvests of firemetals, which there was no end of thirst for among specialty manufacturers. Energized materials were valuable stuff, after all.

The contributions of the artillery were particularly called out. They needed a lot of protection, but that just meant they were great bait, which only helped our clearing speed.

While the enemy had some dangerous Casters, in the end they simply weren’t prepared for mass use of coldarms, whose range and killing power trumped basically everything they had. What alchemical cannons they were using simply didn’t measure up to the technology of the artillery that had been unleashed upon them.

Every day, more and more men were getting Vivic on their Named Weapons, and then working urgently towards Coldphasing or Frost or something of similar use here.

Every Fireborn killed with vivus wasn’t coming back. That motivating thought inspired everyone, and the haul of materials helped, too...

My Counts were advancing rapidly, and as I started working on higher Valences, that naturally helped. Working on Iceburst, Valence II 10’ radius max 5d6 bursting attack, vs Iceball, 20’ radius at III max 10d6 bursting attack, made a difference on spending secondary attacks, as did Bolts vs Lances, and higher Valence Cone attacks, and so forth.

If hordes of cheap reinforcements came streaming in, I was perfectly happy to Chainshard and Cryoclasm them all dead, too. It all went into the Land and forced back Fire.

Once everyone else realized it too, these annoyances trying to drive them back were harvested just as readily as those that had been holding the ground before.

Taking the ground was useless, in the end. To win this, we had to Kill Them All, or we were just going to lose the ground as more of them came back. Killing them so they didn’t return WAS securing the ground, and the only way to do it.

Ergo, the slaughter continued.josei

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The second Firebaron was a Sun Brother. What such a ‘noble’ knight of Fire was doing on the planet, I had no idea. I could only assume he was indulging in something subterranean, and only came out when the Firezone expanded.

It was a bad decision. In the end, I didn’t freeze him down, as he called for honorable combat with a champion, and The Mick, of all people, deigned to accept him, Buffing up and going out there.

He got a LOT of complimentary video out of that, and the Sun Brother didn’t have much to answer the Blood Magic burningso violently through Smior, starting with a Dispel to remove his own defenses, and then slamming down on him with ice and lightning and acid, leaving him no answers. The Mick was also Enlarged to twice normal size, fighting the powerful Fireborn face to face, and gave up nothing in strength.

The Sun Brother was more skilled, that was a given, but the Way of Water II gave The Mick a huge balancing force, and his magic and superior Weapon did the rest. He beat the proud and valiant Sun Brother in front of his whole army, and led the attack after the devastating morale hit.

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A Salamander Noble led the third volcano, and was not at all happy to see us coming. His army of burning snake-men and their elemental and firesnake underlings came out to meet us, which was commendable. I took out their archer corps first, fire resistance dealt with a lot of the rest of the ranged attacks, and a lot of guncold did for most of them.

The fourth volcano was led by a particularly intelligent magman, and he led a berserk horde of magmen, Elementals, and mephits at us so large it looked like the whole battlefield was a moving lava field.

We were kiting back from the get-go against such overwhelming numbers, although I was simply Cryoclasming to beat the band, blowing huge chunks in their numbers repeatedly. I pretty much dealt with most of their mephit air force by myself, wiping out flock after flock of them with Chained Shardrays. Sleipner kept the boys moving across the field of advance, as squads of men on Mass Disks fell back firing, and Fireborn with cold dark holes in them fell by hundreds and then thousands. The fallen were just trampled over by those behind them, and continued to charge in a frenzy, trying to reach the men just beyond their burning appendages, and dying in droves as they did so.

By the time we were done, there were dead Fireborn burning vivic over ten square miles of ground, refusing to flee right up until the end.

Master Fred put a freezing round in the head of their ogre-sized Firebaron, not batting an eye, and we completed our encirclement of the Shroudzone.